credit has made great advancements from where john mccain was in 2008. but that was a really low bar. so the obama campaign has managed to move disrespecting women, deriding minorities, let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this, women of america beware. there's a crowd out there that doesn't believe in you. you go through the terror of rape and they question your word, they say you better have that baby or you're going to jail. check the republican platform that came out of tampa, 14th amendment rights to the fertilized human egg. what about the woman's rights you might ask? personhood for the unborn from conception, what about the

woman's right to control her personhood. now a close romney ally in indiana put out word he would criminalize abortion even if the woman was raped. it's headed for the white house, people were scoffed when rick santorum pushed the contraception and now republicans are pushing a measure to let bosses deny coverage for birth control simply by saying they don't believe in it. bosses get to decide, all this from a party that wants to dismember medicare, erase health care and kill the effort for better education. romney is right it's not about big bird. it's the nose brained campaigns they're running on. joining me is gwen moore and howard fineman. richard mourdock answered a question submitted about i a voter about his position on abortion. let's listen. >> you know this is that issue that every candidate for federal or state office faces and i, too, certainly stand for life. i know there are some who disagree and i respect their

point of view but i believe life begins at conception. the only exception i have to have an abortion is in that case of the life of the mother. i just, i struggled with it myself for a long time but i came to realize life is that gift from god and i think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something that god intended to happen. >> and there is he saying under the law woman should be denied the right to choose an abortion, she would be criminalized under his law. shortly after the debate ended mourdock's comments had gone rival. romney's spokesperson who often does the cleanup distanced her candidate. "governor romney disagrees with richard mourdock's comments and they do not reflect his views." it may have been a little late to back away given romney's ads supporting him, one of only two senate candidates he's gone out there, went out the day before. >> this fall i'm supporting richard mourdock for state senate. as state treasury richard worked with governor daniels to balance

the budget and make government more accountable. as senator richard would be the 51st vote to repeal and replace government-run health care. richard will help stop the reid/pelosi agenda. there's so much at stake. i hope you'll join me in supporting richard mourdock for u.s. senate. >> there you go. we've got the candidate pushing himself away from mourdock's statement. mourdock of course is the republican nominee in the state of indiana for the united states senate. let's take a look we've got a couple guests, u.s. congressman gwen moore from wisconsin, recounted her ideal in this horrible situation and we also have msnbc star, howard fineman. congressman moore, i want to talk to you about your own feelings, attitudes and experiences that might put a light on this thing. candidate for the united states senate in indiana saying if a woman is raped and has a pregnancy she should be forced by law to have that child. if you read the republican platform it basically says criminalizes abortion in any

case. go ahead. your thoughts. >> well, i could tell you as a survivor of rape, legitimate rape, whatever kind of rape you want to call it, i caution the women of america to not allow mitt romney and these senators to take over our government. they will totally eviscerate the rights of women to control their own destiny. i could tell you, rape is not rare, and you know, i differ with michael steele and others who say that they have just been inarticulate. they are really articulating the views of people who, of members of congress and the president who believe that there should be no exceptions to abortion. their belief is rain is another form of conception. they believe that rape is sort of an excuse or loophole that women use in order to get an

abortion and i can tell you that 95% of all rape victims are women. 25% of all women in their lifetime will experience rape. that means your niece, your daughter, your granddaughter, and if we start forcing women to have babies when they have raped, it will cause such social chaos and these men who would seek to be in charge of our white house, our supreme court, and our united states senate are a danger to the health of women. rape causes post traumatic stress disorder, suicidal attempts, visceral reactions. i can tell you as a rape survivor, every time one of these buffoons opens their mouth, chris, i really recoil, physically recoil with how disgusting this is, and it brings up terrible memories. >> thank you. stay with us. howard, let's talk ideology here. this is an ideology. you're hearing it from mourdock,

heard it from todd aiken, a woman can't get pregnant if she's raped against her will, crazy talk because they cannot accept the impurity of any policy, it has to be down the line which the definition of a fanatic, we must punish anybody that has an abortion, helps somebody has an abortion, anything to do with it but they don't recognize in life not everything is your choice. >> that's why they wanted the personhood, they wanted the language about personhood and the personhood amendment in the platform, that was crucial to them. mitt romney says now in one of his many torturers, different positions on abortion that he is impure in the sense that he will accept abortions in the case of rape, incest and life of the mother. >> he's running on the plat form. >> number two the democrats rightly jumped all of this, i talked to people in the romney campaign and the obama campaign. the romney campaign says hey our

candidate distanced himself from richard mourdock. the democrats are saying first of all the ads are still up. >> he's still endorsing that guy. >> secondly the key in several states, chris, are independent women voters and they say in surveys abortion is their number one issue so this is going to play right at those people in colorado, new hampshire, virginia and so forth. >> they're in bed with the far right. >> he's saying he wants bipartisanship and if he's saying he's a moderate, being in bed with richard mourdock doesn't strengthen his argument. >> people on the far right are saying what they want and this guy is in bed with him. the president's spokeswoman said "the president felt those comments were outrageous and demeaning to women." she said he found it perplexing the ads haven't come down. already the democratic national committee has a web video linking romney and mourdock. let's listen to part of that ad. >> this fall i'm supporting

richard mourdock for senate. >> even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. >> this is a man who i want to see in washington to make sure that we can not just talk about changing things but actually have the vote to get things changed. >> even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that god intended to happen. >> we got to get this guy elected in the u.s. senate. >> he's a wingnut obviously based upon what he's been saying and also beat a great man, dick lugar in indiana, sorry, is this the same guy? i can't believe they chose mourdock over lugar. chris christie, todd whitman a republican said "mourdock's comments damage all republicans and especially romney as the fight for the woman's vote intensifies. this could be a defining moment for romney and he should

immediately denounce both mourdock and the comments." that's christie todd whitman. massachusetts senator scott brown, emphasized he is pro choice and disagrees with mourdock. new hampshire senator kelly ayott canceled a trip to campaign with mourdock and the governor urged mourdock to apologize. congresswoman moore, these guys are dancing away from this guy because he's embarrassed them. seems as you point out their platform, they are running away from the platform, from what paul ryan has said about personhood. how many times can they make deals with the hard right to get the support of the base of the republican side and then dance away from it when the lights go on? >> i just hope women of america are seeing that this is the dirty little secret inside of

the republican party. they have no respect for women, no regard for women. they want to give rights to an embryo at the expense of women's health and women's lives, and they just want to get elected. you know, believe us for these 13 days, but i believe mitt romney and these senators i believe them for what they have said the first time. they have said that they would repeal -- >> congresswoman, you're an african-american, the 14th amendment came out of the civil war, an attempt to make sure the freed slaves had the rights of citizenship and all the rights of life, liberty and property. now to take the 14th amendment and exploit it for this ideological battle of craziness, as you said, the fertilized eggs has the rights over the woman, who is supposed to have control of her body under the law, and doesn't under this thing. >> and it does. for mitt romney, and these senators to say that i mean this is a woman's entire life.

i mean, it's her physical health, her mental health, her economic status. i could tell you something, chris, as a mother of three, it's hard enough to raise children when you plan a pregnancy, much less to have these men thrust pregnancy upon you. i can tell you that the jerry sandusky, that's the reason why we can't pass the violence against women act for example because these men do not take the violence against women seriously. they perhaps think that rape is just a sort of a rite of passage but rape is pandemic, it's a pandemic disease in this country, and despite what todd aiken says, you can become pregnant and what is so cynical is that once you become pregnant these republicans don't want you to have food stamps, they don't want you to of wic. they begrudge you a safety net, and so i am hoping that the women of america will believe these people for what they are telling you. these are not misstatements. they are stating what they actually believe.

>> well we benefit a lot from your experience and knowledge. thanks so much, u.s. congressman moore. howard, is this going to get tied around the neck of romney? >> democrat also do everything they can in key places from independent libertarian women. >> colorado. >> colorado, new hampshire, northern virginia, women who are in business and might like mitt romney on the economy, they're going to hold back and the democrats will have the chance to get them for the same reason about libertarianism, they want to control their own bodies and lives. >> romney has made his bed with the crazy crowd. thank you, howard. coming up, rational exuberance, republicans strutting like the election is in the bag. are they knowing something we don't know or bluffing hoping to influence reporters and undecided voters that want to go with the winner. the right wing won't quit with its fever swamp fantasies with president obama who is foreign and other. and sarah palin today threw out the dog whistle and pulled out a

trumpet with obama's "shuck and drive" on libya, that's the way they're talking now. and rudy giuliani joins to us play "hardball." let me finish with this dirty relentless attack on the president for people who don't know what it means to be a true american. this is "hardball," the place for politics. [ thunder crashes ] [ female announcer ] some people like to pretend a flood could never happen to them. and that their homeowners insurance protects them. [ thunder crashes ] it doesn't. stop pretending. only flood insurance covers floods.

♪ visit floodsmart.gov/pretend to learn your risk. well elizabeth warren appears to be opening up a lead in the massachusetts senate race. new wbur/mass inc. poll finds a six-point lead. 50 the magic number, brown 44. earlier this month brown was up by three. i think tom menino the mayor is the key. in connecticut murphy has a lead over mcmahon. we'll be right back.

welcome back to "hardball." the romney campaign sounding calm, cool and confident with 13 days to go. since the first debate romney has caught president obama in most national polls but is romney the front-runner as he's projecting himself to be right now and some in the media are now painting him? this morning politico's mike allen threw cold water on the growing conventional wisdom. "to be president you have to win states not debates and mitt romney has a problem. romney has not put away a single one of the must have states, president obama remains the favorite because he only needs to win a couple of the toss-ups, mitt needs to win most of them." jonathan chait put it "this say bluff. romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, for a self-filling prophecy." well written. jon chait sitting with david corn, the author of "47 percent"

as if it actually exists. >> it does, it does. >>. >> how much is it? >> 99 cents. >> read it in one night. >> jonathan you wrote that very well. when i was learning about the theory of b.s., if you will, that they're going to win it reminds me of that prince w. he announced we have the bush family the right to be president and i'm going to dictate through five weeks of recount that i am the president. is this what the other princely born guy is up to, romney. >> bush did that before the election, he went out to california, karl rove said he would win 320 electoral votes. >> my daddy said i'll be president, it's coming true. >> i went back and read something i wrote in 2000 when i

was at "the new republic" at the time saying bush doesn't have it in the bag and i had to convince everyone he wasn't going to crush al gore, it was a surprising, shocking -- >> but this strategy of saying you've won before you've won creates an inevitability, i think it's ridiculously premature. we have two weeks and anything can happen and by the way the numbers are closing and may be crossing. >> i don't know why we're surprised the romney campaign which doesn't tell the truth about his policy positions, his past statements. >> his taxes. >> his taxes, even what he said five seconds ago is throwing a line of bull out what's going to happen on the elections. i think what they're trying to do two, everyone's getting worried about a most election fight that it's not definitive or something comes up and so the more you talk about it beforehand is looks like romney is going to win, you try to set up again for the post election fight that may or may not. >> like in florida. >> like in florida so it's the type of thing that reporters get suckered into and you know, we keep looking at the national,

does it matter. >> let's get down to the psychobabble here. why do republicans lust for the presidency? it's almost like we are the ruling class. they don't mind who is running congress. those jobs are middle level, below the line in the house. they must be president. it's like if they're not president, they don't call the military at their demand. >> no. >> they don't have this power of living in the white house where the best people live, they've really failed themselves. >> i think democrats want to be president pretty badly, too. >> i don't think it's the same sense of right. >> you're talking about entitlement. you're talking about a sense of entitlement. >> right, democrats earn it. >> we've seen for the last four years, talked about this numerous times on the show that they don't accept obama as a legitimate presidents and so thus they feel that it's theirs. >> in 2000 do you think the republicans would have given in so easily the way it worked for the democrats? >> no. >> w. would have written that beautiful speech al gore gave?

no, they don't concede. if obama carries ohio which looks good as of today perhaps the main reason is he helped save the auto industry. the president addressed that yesterday at a rally in ohio. let's watch and this many people believe is the key state in this election, ohio. >> if mitt romney had been president when the auto industry was on the verge of collapse, we might not have an american auto industry today. i wasn't about to let detroit go bankrupt or toledo go bankrupt. i bet on american workers, i bet on american manufacturing. i would do it again because that bet has paid off for ohio and for america in a big way. >> he believes he's going to win and you can see it there. brand new "time" magazine poll today shows the president with a comfortable five-point lead nationally among likely voters, 49-44, which that's ohio. oh, god, 49-44. what do you make of that? >> i think he's up in ohio. all the polls have him up in ohio. it's close. he doesn't have a big margin but he is ahead. >> it's consistent for two months he's had this lead in ohio that's ahead of all the leads in the other swing states

he has. >> if the polls are right, which they might not be. if the polls are right obama is winning. >> this ad by bill clinton a strong endorsement of the president, it's basically entitled "he's got it right." >> the stuff some folks are saying about president obama sounds kinds of familiar. the same people said my ideas would destroy destroy jobs and called me every name in the book. we created 22 million jobs and created debts into surpluses. we should invest in the middle class and education and pay down our debt with spending restraint and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. sound familiar? >> let's take a look at this ad from obama, another one, this is about getting people out to vote, it's the underdog ad which is the flipside of the bragging ad on their side, bragging point of view, trying to push out to the mainstream press and here is obama playing it differently perhaps the we try harder approach, the harry truman

approach might win for him. let's watch this ad. >> 537, the number of votes that changed the course of american history. >> florida is too close to call. >> the difference between what was and what could have been. so this year, if you're thinking that your vote doesn't count, that it won't matter, well, back then there were probably at least 537 people who felt the same way. make your voice heard. vote. >> that's my religion, that's what i really believe, every vote counts. i believe it. i tell my kids this. and it usually comes down to a choice between two candidates. you play games voting for the third party candidate. it's two people. >> this is about mobilizing people. in my neighborhood n my community i know people who are doing less and less excited than they were four years ago, not door knocking, not going to swing states the way they did four years ago, that has to have somewhat of an impact. they want to squeeze every vote they can out of their natural constituency. it's natural but if it's so

tight like this and you don't know if there's any funny business with superpack ads, voter suppression efforts, they just want to get everybody out that they can, and i think ads like that are, i hope are effective. >> there are definitely a lot of polls that show an enthusiasm gap with republicans just rabid, you know, determined to get obama out of office and democrats, they're working their way toward it but not where they were in '08. that's the main project of the obama campaign. >> republicans there are so many haters in their midst, not all but so many haters on the right they're going to vote, they're going to show up. jonathan and david, thank you as always. here's one for obama, bruce springsteen, the boss, the singer is working on a new campaign song for the president. this is "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ [ male announcer ] here's a fun fact:

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back to "hardball." first up, debate or duet, that's what jon stewart and plenty of other people, too, are asking after monday night's foreign policy debate. after all of the talk president obama being too weak on foreign policy, why did it seem like mitt romney was cheerleading for the entire debate the obama administration policies? >> listen to these guys duet on syria. >> i believe that assad must go. >> assad has to go. >> i don't want to have our military involved in syria. >> for us to get more entangled militarily in syria is a serious step. >> we do need to make sure. >> making absolutely certain. >> that they don't have arms. >> arms. >> in the wrong hands. >> how about iraq? >> governor romney was the decision to go into iraq? >> it was the right decision to go into iraq, i supported it at

the time, i support it now. >> but do you support it -- now! >> we don't want another iraq. >> well i guess that's not a flip-flop so much as a principled recognition of iraq war's current unpopularity. >> he's so good. that was the romney etch-a-sketch in all its glory. also our share of obama impressions over the years but the latest a-lister to make an attempt, bruce springsteen, the music legend at an obama rally in virginia doing his rendition of the president and testing out a new campaign song, sort of. >> late at night the president gives me a phone call. and he's, once, twice a week this happens, it's getting kind of annoying actually. "bruce, i need a campaign song." a country musician wrote a song for mitt romney and i need a campaign song." so i'm thinking campaign song.

i was having a hard time finding words that rhyme with obama, you run out of those really quick so i had a ♪ i came to virginia looking for a date ♪ ♪ we kissed and i said it's a hell of a state ♪ ♪ we made love and it wasn't so great ♪ ♪ forward and away we go i'm not sure what that has to do with the election, but. >> you notice he was able to include a nice nod there to virginia, one of the all-important swing states. up next, obama derangement syndrome, we're seeing more crazy right wing nuts out there, attempts to delegitimize, sarah palin accusing obama of shuck and jive, that's her phrase, wonderful lady, on libya. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. 

welcome back to "hardball." throughout the obama presidency we've seen blatant attempts by

the far right to discredit and delegitimize the president. group of wealthy conservative activists planned to release a targeted dvd to targeted people. "the times" writes a 30-person focus group looked at three choices d'souza's 2016 obama's america, which theorizes that president's political beliefs were shaped by the radical anti-colonial views of his kenyan father and dreams of my real father which posits the implausible theory that the president's real father is mr. davis and that mr. davis indoctrinated him early on. they receives copies of "dreams of my father" in the mail, jonathan alter and "chicago tribune" columnist clarence paige, the blatantness went through the roof, sarah palin who people have mixed views put out a facebook "obama's shuck and jive ends with benghazi lies" referring to the attack on the libyan embassy.

dog whistle is a dog whistle. shock and jive has an ethnic connection, not bad in all cases, it's slang, doesn't mean evil but to throw it at the president as an ethnic shot is blatant. >> for knowledge with people with plantation days, slaves the shucking of the corn would jive each other to pass the time. >> that's where it comes from. >> shuck and jive, yeah, thanks to you i researched this, chris, i learned things. maybe sarah palin picked it up in her days as a sports reporter. the jumping to conclusions about benghazi there's a coverup

stating it as yes it's going on and we have to stop it and barack obama is guilty, blah, blah, blah, that's paranoid style of politics where you don't take into account the fact that people can make mistakes or that signals can get crossed or whatever. >> there were mistakes, i thought it was the 13th, it's the 14th of the month. >> right. >> when you keep doing this stuff, like at this thompson, i got nothing against tommy thompson, the kid shouts out at some event, this guy from obama is not extra chicago, no, he's from kenya, at this point in the discussion. that may be an acute negativity when trump brought it up but jonathan this trickles out every couple weeks. trump says the president is "monkeying with the unemployment numbers" keeps going on over and over again, just enough to keep it in the atmosphere. to the point where today only two in five republicans in the state of ohio, only two in five agree that the president was born in this country. it does work.

it bleeds into people, they hear it enough from enough people and they go it must be something there and they do it and it works. it's terrible stuff. >> chris, i actually think my old friend clarence is being a little bit polite. i think is rank racism. sometimes people on the right get very upset when people on the left charge racism, but shuck and jive, that's like talking about watermelon, for jews, talking about jews are greedy or the irish or drunk, whatever, these are racist tropes and we need to call them what they are, and i actually think at least implicitly trump was playing on racism today with his ridiculous stunt demanding obama's college transcripts. what's the subtext of it? >> what is that about? it's about affirmative action. >> he's basically saying barack obama was too stupid to be at columbia because he was an

affirmative action student and therefore because he was affirmative action, he must not have had good enough grades to stay in college or whatever he's talking about. it's racist. let's get serious about this. >> not anybody out there thinks, people that don't hear it should hear it. over the summer romney's surrogate and former white house chief of staff john sununu criticized president america as un-american. >> the president clearly demonstrated that he has absolutely no idea how the american economy functions. the men and women all over america who have worked hard to build these businesses, their businesses from the ground up is how our economy became the envy of the world. it is the american way. i wish this president would learn how to be an american." >> he said this stuff he's not just black, which is obvious, he's obviously somewhere from somewhere else, un-american,

trump keeps selling his stuff and they bite on it, he's rich, he might be smart, there's a mistake in thinking. what do you think, is this going to cull the reaction results in an election 50/50 and a couple people buy this slop because they hear it relentlessly from people that make a lot of money? >> a lot of us thought four years ago that once obama got elected and handily so that all of the garbage would fade away. it hasn't. there are ridiculously high numbers particularly republican think he wasn't born in america. >> they don't want him to. >> i agree it's more than that, it's a cultural touchstone now, like you don't think obama's really american? well neither do i, blah, blah, blah, and you got this sudden tribal attachment now. >> it's sensitive. as a white person i think it's a statement against the white people like this. it has nothing to do with

blacks, it's a sickness by the white people. they ought to be ashamed of themselves. clarence page, thanks for coming on, miss you buddy. up next former mayor rudy giuliani joins us to talk about the 2012 election. it's always interesting with rudy. this is "hardball" the place for politics. [ cheeping ] [ male announcer ] you hear that?

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we're back. we've lived through primaries, conventions and four big debates and tonight we stand 300 hours away from the day that will decide the fates of the country and also barack obama and mitt romney. here with me tonight to evaluate the state of the race is america's mayor, new york's own rudy giuliani himself, a former presidential candidate. welcome, mayor. >> thank you, chris. >> i've always been a giuliani fan and people are always amazed at that. i think you did a hell of a job with 9/11 and if you've done one thing that big in your life that's pretty big. >> thanks, chris. >> you've got some legs for that one. let me ask you about this president of ours. if i and somebody told me the president of the united states went over and killed bin laden and s.e.a.l.s chose the direct route, got the guy, a guy done drone attacks, taking apart bin laden's operation, focusing on that, iraq, not anything else, eyes on the prize i'd say that sounds like giuliani what you would have done as president.

>> i give him a lot of credit for that, for getting bin laden, i give him a lot of credit for pursuing pretty doggedly what has to be done in afghanistan, a lot of areas where i think he's failed. >> people inside tell me he's pretty tough, the phrase was when you get in that room with him, he gets the bad guys. >> look, you're not going to have beating hillary clinton and john mccain and be in the competitive race for president if you're not tough. no one doubts barack obama's toughness. sometimes i doubt his judgment and on domestic policies i think it's been a disaster. >> i'll give you a shot. >> i think our economy is in shambles. >> you think. >> 1.2% growth? that's pathetic. you should be embarrassed of that. the level of unemployment for so long. the president doesn't seem to have a plan. >> you're in new york you know the financial collapse it wasn't just another monetary recession. >> let's suppose i was running for re-election of mayor of new york city and three and a half

years later i said i took over -- >> you're in the market now. >> the crisis it's now worse. look where unemployment is and our deficit is. >> you're doing the -- let me talk about this, real estate market's back, unemployment is down to 7.8. i admit the next one will be the crucial one that comes in, in a month. you win the party, you got the points in there, the economy is not right. debris with you. you're pro choice, i think you're open to the idea of same-sex marriage, no enemy of it. you're in a party now that is run by the people who don't believe in any of that. look at your platform and the people who write the platform like mourdock the other day that you know, even if you have a rape, the woman can't make a decision about the pregnancy. you got a guy out there says if you really weren't raped, whatever that means, then you're really not having -- like you can will your way out of a pregnancy. you have some looney toons on the right. who is the last moderate in the senator, suzanne collins, olympia snowe, arlen specter was kicked out of the party.

where would you be in the caucus? >> how could you, they wouldn't like you. >> seven out of ten issues not ten out of ten. i work for ronald reagan and ronald reagan used to say if a man agrees with me eight out of ten times that's about good enough to have a political party. >> is that still good enough in the party? >> it better be because he can't really govern unless you have that view and i think all said and done i think that's the way mitt romney looks at things. i watched mitt romney as governor of massachusetts, what i saw there as a practical man, a man who knows how to make it. >> is that guy still controlling the situation after all the promises? >> everybody unfortunately runs differently than they govern. barack obama was against mandates. we've got a mandate because it was the practical outcome of the discussions with pelosi and reid. i think if you look to the way mitt governed in massachusetts that's about the way he'll govern as president.

>> jesse in california said if you can't drink their booze, eat their food and sleep with their women and vote against them in the morning you shouldn't be in this business. do you think -- you're laughing because you've heard it before. do you think governor romney is that ruthless so say i'll go with my robes on at liberty university, sign on to the neocons but in the end i'll be a man of judgment. how does he cut the ties with those people? glue don't cut the ties with them. practical decisions -- >> is he a moderate? >> practical decisions come along and you make the best possible decision. your ideology guides you but doesn't control you. ronald reagan lowered taxes, and two times he raised taxes because he got a good deal with tip o'neill and made a good deal. >> i was there. >> so here's a man believed in cutting taxes. but you'll give him a better deal on maybe military defense. >> so you're sense is, i've heard inside, because i've talked to a top guy, and i like him and i disagree with him and

he's very close to the president, the presidential candidate. he says that a lot of neoconservatives, the real ideologues, are nervous that he is a practical guy. is that your view? >> i consider him a practical guy. i think all you have to do is look where he comes from. he comes from business. doesn't come from the academic world. doesn't even come from the political world. he hasn't had a long time to develop this very, very rigid political ideology. what's he basically been? a problem solver. and that's the way by instinct, that's the way you're going to govern. >> would you like to be attorney general under romney? >> right now i like exactly what i'm doing. >> of course, but would you like to be attorney general? >> i told you really nice. >> but look at all you guys, look at sununu, who's barking out there like a dog, i think he wants to be ambassador to the vatican. the way he's been behaving. he's not going to lebanon, i think he's going to the vatican. but you don't want to be in this administration? >> i'm not looking for a job. >> you don't want to be in it? >> i'm not interested. >> thank you. let me ask you about this, let's take a look at this question, some of the real whackos now. rudy giuliani, pro-choice,

pro-gay opportunity. then these people like mourdoch and todd akin, and they must strike you as a guy who grew up in new york city as crazy. >> no, they don't strike me as crazy. >> but when a guy says, you can't get pregnant in you're raped. what does that mean? >> that's crazy. the guy obviously never took biology in high school. >> but these guys in the old day would rape women to make their point. >> i understand why he said what he said. >> why? >> because i think what he's talking about, this is old catholic theology, right? something bad happens, did god will it or not? he made a mistake. i think what he was trying to say is not that god wills a rape, god gives human beings free will, they do bad thing, but god wills life. so he's taken a really complex subject -- >> but can you see putting a woman in jail, criminalizing a woman who's been raped, for not having the baby? >> of course not. >> but what he's talking about? the law. you're talking about philosophy. by the way, i agree with your philosophy.

but should the law penalize a woman who's been raped? >> i don't believe so. >> do you think he does? he just said so. >> i'm not sure he really does. >> aren't you helpful harry. you come in and help these guys, they say terrible things, you say, he didn't really mean that. he said it! he's running for the senate. >> a lot of people say things stupidly, they get it contorted. >> okay, akin, when he said the guy can't get impregnated by a rape. >> that was different. >> what does that mean? >> that was so significantly dumb, he shouldn't be running for the senate. mourdoch got screwed up on theology about what god wills. the other guy -- >> okay, you're straight, i'm straight, let's go over the gay republican. and there are a lot of them. and you get these guys, and i like them -- >> yeah, they supported me. >> very good candidates. they're now endorsing romney. he opposes them on every front. how do you explain that? >> i don't know the conversations they had. they supported me, in part because i signed the the first, i think i signed the first domestic partnership. >> okay.

>> if it wasn't the first, it was the second in the country. big controversy at the time. but i've never accepted completely the idea of gay marriage. i still believe it should be marriage between a man and a woman. but i'm in favor of domestic partnership -- >> civil unions. >> civil unions. and i'm also in favor of states making their own decisions. >> that's the way it's going. >> if you theoretically believe in state's rights is and not a big federal government, then you should be in favor of, let massachusetts -- >> let's go back, more than men, women are the big voters in this country. do you think a woman has the right to an abortion if she chooses to do that? >> i do. i've always believed that. >> the republican party platform -- >> my church disagrees. >> your party says a fertilized egg the second after conception should have the rights of the 14th amendment to life, liberty and property. what does your party mean that a fertilized egg has the right to property. what does that mean? it's in your document. >> i've never agreed with the entire republican -- >> did you ever read? did you ever laugh at it?

>> did i ever read it? >> it says that women don't have rights, but the fertilized egg has rights. >> in any event -- >> you're the lawyer. the you become attorney general for romney, you have to enforce this kind of thinking. >> but he doesn't believe that. the candidate of the party believes that abortion should be available in the case of rape, in the case of incest, in the case of danger to the life of the mother. so the candidate of the party believes that. that's what's going to happen -- >> why did he pick paul ryan, who believes in the personhood amendment? >> the vice president has to submit his judgment to the judgment of the president. >> a flexible man out there. i love the way you describe these guys. you would be a great criminal attorney, especially when the guy is guilty. america's mayor, rudy giuliani, thank you for coming in. when we return, let me finish with the slime we keep hearing from the far right and the presidential candidate who won't stand up to it. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ i'd like to thank eating right, whole grain, multigrain cheerios! mom, are those my jeans?

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let me finish tonight with this. sarah palin just put on her facebook page, shuck and jive ends with benghazi lives. shuck and jive. she's talking about the president of the united states, of course. you know, the guy donald trump accuses of being from another country, one in east africa. the guy he accuses of, his delightful words, monkeying with the jobless numbers. the guy he continues to call a minority, who couldn't have gotten where he got without some special help, because, you know, he's black. this crap from the party of abraham lincoln, this endless spewing of garbage that belittles not the target, but the people who eat it up out there.

what about the senate's son who just said the president should go back to kenya, or the endless old stuff about the food stamp president, about welfare and the obama campaign, or the president himself dumping the work requirement so he could, quote, help his base. all of this seeps into the brain of some people, you know, what are called the low-information voters who can be reached by this stuff. look at the numbers in ohio, for example, where only two in five republicans, just two in five republicans are willing to say that president obama was born in the united states. do you believe it? and it works, all right. and think about how it affects the results and if it does, think two weeks from now. think if romney benefits from this slime, without ever trying to stop it, without ever having a sister souljah saying, no, i'm not taking this kind of help, i'm not having this kind of out. i was never so proud of a candidate as i was of john mccain when he stood up to that woman that stood up and said obama's an arab. romney's never served his country. the only person he's been captive of those right-wing haters who keep shooting out the garbage that's smelling up the campaign. "the ed show" with ed schultz begins right now.